Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with something I’ve been thinking about for a while: making a simple crossword puzzle generator. I’m not talking about anything fancy, just a basic grid with some words intersecting. Here’s how I went about it.
First Steps: Planning it Out
First things first, I needed a plan. I decided to use Python because it’s what I’m most comfortable with. I figured I’d start with a really small grid, maybe 5×5, just to get the hang of it. I also knew I needed a word list. I just grabbed a simple text file with some common words.
Building the Grid
Next, I started coding. I used a list of lists to represent the grid. So, like, each inner list is a row, and each item in the inner list is a cell in the grid. I filled the grid with periods “.” to represent empty spaces, just to start.
grid = [['.' for _ in range(5)] for _ in range(5)]
Placing the First Word
Now for the fun part – fitting words in! I started simple. I picked a word from my list and just slapped it in the first row, horizontally. Easy peasy.
word = "HELLO"
for i, letter in enumerate(word):
grid[0][i] = letter
Adding More Words (The Tricky Part)
Here’s where it got a bit more complicated. I needed to find a way to add words that intersect with the existing ones. I wrote a function to check if a word could fit at a certain position, either horizontally or vertically. It checked for a few things:
Does the word go out of bounds?
Does it overlap with any existing letters incorrectly? It’s okay if the letters match for intersections, of course!
Are there any letters immediately before or after the word, that would mess the crossword?
Looping and Trying
Then, I wrote a loop that would:
Pick a random word from my word list.
Pick a random position and direction (horizontal or vertical).
Check if the word fits using my function.
If it fits, put the word in the grid!
If it doesn’t fit, try a different position or direction.
I kept this loop going until I either filled up the grid as much as I could, or I ran out of words to try. It took some tweaking to get it working decently.
Displaying the Result
Finally, I added some simple code to print the grid to the console, so I could see the crossword I created. I could pretty them print up at this step.
for row in grid:
print(''.join(row))
Wrapping Up
It’s definitely not perfect, and it can be pretty slow, especially with larger grids or longer word lists. There’s a lot of room for improvement. For example:
Better word placement logic: Right now, it’s pretty random. A smarter algorithm could prioritize intersections or try to fill dense areas first.
More efficient checking: My fit-checking function could be optimized.
Backtracking: If it gets stuck and can’t find a place for a word, it could backtrack and try rearranging previous words.
But hey, it was a fun little project, and it actually works (sometimes)! It gave me a much better appreciation for how those fancy crossword apps are built. It’s harder than it looks!
